Of Druids and Spirit Shamans

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I used to remember reading a lot in community forums that Druids were horribly underpowered in NWN 1 and NWN 2. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent to me that the only reason for all that bias was because people resented micromanagement (simplicity = power mentality).

After playing as pure caster Druid and testing out different strategies, I am convinced that the Druid class is in fact horribly overpowered. So now I want to know what the consensus is against the Druid's cousin class, the Spirit Shaman. The lack of an animal companion+ the lack of Dragon Form should account for a more balanced class, but I want to know if this is in fact a functional class unlike the Shifter class in NWN (Shifter is great in paper and at higher levels, but the "cooldown" in between shapeshifts and the poor low-levels functionality killed the class in practice).

In both NWN and NWN2 the Druid has a very powerful spell selection, although these spells are something you need to grow a strategy around for rather than just label as a plain "nuke", "buff" or "debuff". I have high hopes for a class than can possibly spam some of these spells, I'm confident about the class if the "sorcerer syndrome" was all there was to it. But how functional is the class actually considering its inherent skills and wisdom+charisma dependency? It would be annoying if I actually had to catch spirits every few seconds just to cast my spells.

 

the main reason druids get the "underpowered" label is because of the fact that many of their abilities are bugged (shapeshifting not working probably, spells not working in shifted form etc.) the class it self is quite strong, although not cleric strong (but what is?). the spirit shaman on the other hand is quite horrible, its much like a favored soul but without usable abilities and with a horrible MAD disease.

the problem with spiritshaman is, that its amount of spells are determined by wisdom but it's spell DC by charisma (in other words reversed the favored soul) and unlike the favored soul it can't easely use high charisma for anything. And since many druids spells are offensive unlike the cleric which are mainly buff/heal the S-Shaman suffers more from its MAD then the favored soul.
so the nuking capability of the S-Shaman is rather low, it's distinct class skill are most often useless and so on. the S-Shaman is of course playable in the easy official campaigns, but I don't think anybody will consider it a good class.

 

Still, despite having bugged abilities the Druid has a lot of potential power-wise. Like the Wizard it could probably take on a Cleric and win, although in a direct confrontation I wouldn't bet on it. Only thing more powerful than a cleric this time round is a cleric with better companions.

Is the DC really that much of a problem? I thought with a 14 Wis/16 Cha setup and Spellcasting Prodigy you could end up with 16 Wis/18 Cha easy and thus need only sacrifice 3 more points in Wis. I've yet to test Spellcasting Prodigy this way though. The class detail on nwn2wiki and the Manual is sketchy, I've only recently installed MotB and I'm not impressed Gannayev-of-Dreams invested feats in short bows. I'm thinking of making my own melee-oriented version instead (is this as viable? A lot of Druid spells center upon melee combat).

 

the spell DC is acceptable in the OC/MOTB, but spirit shaman is really just a toned down druids thanks to it, along with the other "missing" druid abilities the spirit shaman becomes quite weak in comparison.
the spirit shaman is the only innate caster, who depends on two abilitis. the sorcerer only needs cha (and there for multiclass very well with pal/bg and EK). the favored soul really only needs cha too (yes his spell dc will suffer, but lets face it clerics are strong through buffs and healing, not offensive spells. and the FS multiclass well with bg and pal).
The SS on the other hand actually needs does 19 Wis and hopefully gets more, to get bonus spells, but at the same time he needs a fairly high cha to beat spell DC, as druids spells are more focused on offensive and summoning than buffs (although they do have some good buffs).

that said the SS is more than playable and multiclasses well with stormlord and warpriest. SS is not unplayable, it is just weaker then the other of its kin

and for the record, I agree with you, druids a damn powerfull. the only class more powerfull is the cleric and it really only before multiclassing.

 

I thought the February patch to NWN2 or the new one that is in beta changes Favored Souls so that their WIS determines the DC of their spells; if that is the case than FS and Spirit Shamans would fall into the same category; however, most of the FS spells are for buffing whereas the Spirit Shaman spells are direct attacks. With that being said, FS would still be better off with a higher CHA than WIS.

 

yup the fs and ss have the same problem when coming to spell DC, the FS can unlike the SS just ignore it, as the FS mainly is a buffer and healer.

 

I'd imagine that any race that increase CHA would make a very effective Spirit Shaman; however, a pure Druid should be able to beat down the SS due to the fact the DC is of the Wisdom score and not CHA.

As for Druids being weak; one of the highest AC builds out there is a druid. In fact; druids can go toe to toe with a Cleric if the correct feats are chosen.

 

except that any race with a increase to cha comes with a level penalty, effectively offsetting the gain from a higher cha.

 

Still, Spellcasting Prodigy... As I said before, the feat should actually give the SS a +4 stats total (+2 Wis, +2 Char) spells-wise right? Since the SS is dependent on 2 stats for casting. That's not bad at all. If you choose to go 14/16 Wis/Cha and then you only need to sacrifice 3 more stat points to cast LvL 9 spells. That's ~1.5 DC. Not much, but since the SS can cast a spell repeatedly then it should be OK. I don't think you need more than 19 Wis unless you're building a support SS. At this point the only problem would be on how effective the SS' unique skills are in different settings. I think it's sad that you can't turn your Chastise Spirits uses into something else useful in low-spirit scenarios. I read about the original SS in D20 and he's supposed to have a unique staff and spirit animal companion.

I've decided to just work with Gann and see if I can do something creative with a bow-wielding SS. Not a particularly good choice of feats I think, but so far not bad either.

 

Druids are weak for a number of reasons, IMO. They are a class that is okay at many things but not great at any one thing. Sorcerers, for example, are great at one thing: nuking monsters to ash.

Druids can wear some okay armor and weapons; can shapeshift into some forms that are somewhat useful but not great; have some okay spells but many average or useless spells; they can talk to animals (wow!) and summon an okay animal companion. Lots of neat stuff, but nothing really that useful or powerful and it's all spread a bit too thin.

My biggest problem with druids is that so many of their spells are spells that do small amounts of damage over many rounds. These are pretty useless compared to spells (or weapons) that do a lot of damage in a single round. And in most fights you (or your companions) are killing stuff quickly.

Look at 3rd level druid spells: lots of spells that poison, disease, weaken, lower CON, etc. over many, many rounds. But you also have Call Lightning. So there's your choice: should you cast a spell that might (if he fails his save) lower an enemy's constitution a few points per round or cast Call Lightning and just blast a whole room full of enemies for 20-30 points in a single round?

 

Depends on how they were implemented. Druids in BG2 were indeed jack-of-all-trades type casters. In NWN1 and NWN2 though, Druids are a lot more powerful.

They get the Medium Armor Proficiency and Shield Proficiency feats for free. That's already a lot considering buffs like Cat's Grace and Barkskin or even Elephant's Hide. Give Elanee normal Studded Leather Armor, a normal Heavy Shield and buff her with Cat's Grace and Elephant's Hide and she can reach a staggering AC 28 at level 6.
Give her a normal scimitar and use Flame Weapon on it and she will do 4-16 damage (3-8 slashing damage + 1-8 fire damage) on top of hiding safely behind such a high AC. All in all that's a lot of high numbers for someone barely past being a fledgling.

Level 20 Druid with the Natural Spell feat and in animal form can buff himself with Greater Magic Fang, Storm Avatar and Nature's Avatar for +16 attack, +15 physical damage, +3-18 lightning damage, +1 dodge AC, +1 attack per round, 20-160 temporary HP, 200% movement speed, knockdown immunity and ranged attack immunity (includes weapon attacks and ranged touch attacks like Eldritch Blasts and Disintegrate). His attacks are considered +5 for for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction.
A lot of high numbers there for only 3 buffs.

According to nwn2wiki a fully buffed Deinonychus can reach 425+30d8hps, 58 AC, 27/31/22 in saves and +48/+46/+44/+42/+40 in AB.
Almost as scary as the druid, imo.

Druids are "layering" type characters. They are expected to back their spells up with melee/ranged combat. Their spells are unique as most of these try to complement their combat presence.
Examples:
-Call Lightning does not affect party members, allowing you to cast it while being knee-deep in melee along with your fighters.
-Ice Storm/Inferno/Creeping Doom have no saves, so you don't have to worry about these spells losing effectiveness at higher levels.
-Earthquake and Bombardment knock down characters who fail their saving throws, while you can make yourself/your party immune to this effect with Storm Avatar/Permanence of Stone.

On the whole though it depends on your setup. If your party has more fighter-types, then Call Lightning should be more useful because fighters can take care of most single opponents quite well but have trouble with groups. A party with less fighter-types (say a party with a Wizard PC and Qara/Elanee/Neeshka) would want the Druid to memorize "alternative" spells. Since Qara alone should be able to devastate weak enemy groups by herself, against more powerful enemy types you can use Infestation of Maggots which does Constitution damage. 1-4 Consitution damage per round is a lot when most creatures by this time would only have 15-ish Con or so. You can also use Poison and Quillfire. Quillfire's poison effect has a fixed DC of 18 - for level 5 characters, that's a pretty high number.

For the SS things are more complicated.